Until now, major players in the events sector have been fairly quiet while they digested the likely implications of Security Industry Authority licensing, and discovered where they sit in the grand scheme of things. According to Philip Barber, in its present form the Private Security Industry Act 2001 will necessarily entail much restructuring of events-related operations – and, arguably, a reduced emphasis on the core security function.
Much has already been written and orated concerning the Private Security Industry Act 2001 from the perspective of the door supervisor and manned security sectors. While the Act may be suitable for those target markets, it's proving to be something of an indiscriminate weapon in other areas.

Alas, some of us who are caught in the crossfire are now attempting to deflect the stray bullets and find a way around the unintended consequences. Sadly, there has been little in the way of support – in terms of practical interpretation, at any rate – from the Security Industry Authority (SIA). Consultation appears to have ceased as well.

One cannot fail to gain the impression that within the last few months, and with a General Election looming, the Home Office has directed the SIA to stop its consultation work and start delivering in the real world. Come what may.

The event sector's conundrum
The conundrum with licensing so far as the exhibition and concert/event sector's concerned is that our work is highly seasonal in nature, requiring very large numbers of people for relatively short periods of time.

For example, during the Motor Show at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) – Europe's busiest exhibition venue – we provide continuous employment across a ten-day period for around 550 security and stewarding operatives. In July and August, exhibitors and visitors alike are traditionally away on holiday so we'll deploy an average of barely one tenth of that figure.

During a fully-manned rock concert, we'd require in excess of 120 staff – but only for around six hours. This scenario may occur on, say, 80-odd occasions each year. On some of those nights, we may have concerts scheduled for the main NEC Arena building as well as the nearby National Indoor Arena, so we'd need double the number of operatives.

We cannot viably achieve those numbers by using permanent staff alone. Nor is there a bottomless pool of adequately skilled contractors on hand in the local area. Instead, we rely on a core of permanent, experienced members of staff who serve all of the venues. They'll be supported in their endeavours by a dedicated team of temporary staff who may typically include retired people, those only needing to provide a second income and – in the case of concert stewards – those with a variety of full-time jobs for whom event security is a form of paid evening hobby.

Security: a secondary function
All of these members of staff are trained to BS 7499 (manned security) and BS 8406 (event stewarding) standards, are vetted to BS 7858, have passed the necessary police checks and gained a wealth of wisdom and life experiences. However, from our database of 850 staff there is –by virtue of the peripatetic nature of the job – an annual staff turnover of around one third.

A large proportion of these jobs are predominantly crowd or visitor management/ stewarding roles. That said, most of them have a significant secondary security function and it's hard to see how – as the Act is written – they can be exempted from the licensing requirements without adversely affecting the security operation.

At present, the only viable legal option open to us is to de-skill the security element of the majority of staff such that they might be reclassified as visitor management stewards, thereby partially emasculating what is an effective and proven security o

From our perspective, the Halls at the NEC are licensed under the Licensing Act 1964 (so too the Arenas). This effectively means that our security staff – most of whom have little to do with the control of alcohol abuse – have to be licensed as door supervisors under the Government's regime.

Even without the Private Security Industry Act 2001, in a country where there's close to full employment we are facing up to huge challenges when it comes to recruiting the quality staff we need to manage the larger shows (the support of local, good quality contractors notwithstanding).

With the Act in force, a large proportion of those staff members will not be prepared to take time off from their primary role, childcare or whatever, to undertake lengthy training and chase applications through the licensing bureaucracy and so forth for six-to-eight weeks before they even see their first pay cheque. Even if we, the employers, pay their licensing bills. Instead, they'll apply for work in catering or other commercial sectors where the preliminary training requirements are more realistic and less convoluted, and where they can see the financial rewards much sooner.

At present, the only viable legal option open to us is to de-skill the security element of the majority of staff such that they might be reclassified as visitor management stewards, thereby partially emasculating what is an effective and proven security operation.

We'll then have to create a series of licensed, fully-competent door supervisor response squads able to deal with any security issues as and when they arise. To meet the requirements of the Act the individuals within these squads will be trained – at considerable expense to us – in skills largely irrelevant to their job.

Meeting the terms of regulation
Just now, my very conservative estimate is that I shall need to train a minimum of 75 staff to meet the requirements of door supervisor legislation. This will cost at least £60,000. Money which could be put to much better use in bolstering physical security measures to meet the ever-growing terrorist threat. A more worthy cause than supporting the SIA's bureaucracy. I daren't even contemplate the bill for manned security licensing next year.

In addition, this legal requirement for a licence must apparently be met in an industry noted neither for its infiltration by organised crime, nor drug peddling, wheel clamping extortionists nor acts of physical violence. All of this just to satisfy the needs of a sloppily researched and staffed piece of legislation.

Let us hope that both the Government and the SIA remove their heads from the sand and start listening to the industry once again. Maybe then the security and training requirements of the events industry will drive any licensing decisions – rather than the legislative and political expediency of a Government determined to shoehorn us all into a piece of 'one size fits all' legislation.

Source

SMT